Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Giving Tuesday accentuates the positive -- Nov. 23, 2017 column

After the post-Thanksgiving
buying spree of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday comes Giving
Tuesday, a day to give back.

On the Tuesday after
Thanksgiving, we remember the wisdom of the Beatles: Money “can’t buy me love.”
But giving it away can make us feel better.

Now in its sixth year,
Giving Tuesday raised a respectable $10 million online for charities and
nonprofits in 2012. Fueled by social media, it has grown and spread worldwide.

People in about 100
countries participated last year, raising $168 million for worthy causes, an
increase of 44 percent from 2015. The average contribution was about $108.

Giving Tuesday
encourages us to take a breath, reflect on what’s important and act on our values
by contributing time, energy or cash. Companies also participate, recognizing
that customers, especially millennials, like doing business with companies that
share their values.

Giving is so strongly
associated with our culture that the Museum of American History launched a
Giving in America project two years ago, collecting artifacts such as a March
of Dimes collection can and a bucket from the ALS ice bucket challenge that
swept the country in 2014.

The museum will
sponsor a day-long Giving Tuesday celebration in which kids and adults can
share how they give and why.

Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will match up to $2
million in donations to U.S. nonprofits through Facebook, which is also waiving
its fees for donations made on Facebook that day.

Observers credited the
rise in Giving Tuesday contributions last year partly to a “Trump effect” of
people speaking with their wallets following the election. The ACLU, Anti-Defamation
League and Planned Parenthood were among groups that reported spikes in donations.

The Trump effect
worked both ways. The Donald J. Trump Foundation raised $2.9 million last year,
nearly as much as it did in the previous four years combined. It donated about
$3 million to nonprofits, mostly to veterans groups, distributing more last
year than it had in the last three years combined, The New York Times reported
Monday.

Trump hasn’t actually
contributed to his own charity since 2008, but a couple of deep-pocketed donors
wrote checks for $1 million each. Trump announced he’s shutting down his
foundation, though he hasn’t yet, according to the Times.

Giving Tuesday isn’t
political and it doesn’t accept or distribute contributions. It encourages each
person to choose a favorite charity, donate on the charity’s website and
publicize the choice on social media with the hashtag #givingtuesday.

It was founded in New
York by the 92nd Street Y, a cultural and community center in New
York, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation. Founder Henry Timms, executive director of the Y, is
the son of one of my closest friends.

Many studies have
shown helping others makes you happy. Volunteers may also live longer, manage
their pain better and lower their blood pressure more than those who don’t
volunteer.

Behavioral economists
write about the “warm glow” effect. If you’re generous with your time, talents or
money, you’re likely to report higher levels of well-being.

It may be all in your
head, literally. Acts of generosity activate a part of the brain linked to
happiness, a Swiss study released last summer found.

Participants were
promised about $26 a week for four weeks. Half were asked to commit to spending
the money on someone else and half on themselves. After deciding how they’d
spend the money, the subjects received MRI scans and answered questions.

People spending the
money on others reported feeling happier than those who were treating
themselves. The scans showed generosity triggered a response in a part of the
brain related to happiness.

Interestingly, this
happened even though the participants never actually received or spent any
money. And it didn’t matter how much they planned to give.

“You don’t need to
become a self-sacrificing martyr to feel happier. Just being a little more
generous will suffice,” said Phillipe Tobler, one of the researchers.

On this Giving
Tuesday, we can all make ourselves feel better by acting on our values and
priorities.